hotel sunset

As the sun sets on another decade and I find myself making another online hotel booking I try and jot up how many beds I’ve slept in over the last ten years which opens up a whole new project to temporarily satisfy my secret sadistic love of Microsoft Excel. My beautifully calculated figures seem to indicate a regular sporadic change in semi/permanent abodes and a sudden dramatic rise in temporary resting places. I should probably keep a log of what shall be called - in brief deference to political correctness – the more affordable hotels and guest houses spread across the UK, and beyond. I look forward in this new year to making some more curious discoveries which will hopefully rival my favourite of 2009. London. Zone Two. Imagine my involuntary surprise at expecting pretty much the worse and yet, at the end of my A-Z trail, finding myself standing at the entrance to a rather spectacular Victorian mansion, glittering white in the late evening lamp light. Check. Check. And Double Check. Yep. This would appear to be it. But stepping through that entrance was bewilderingly like Alice’s fall down the rabbit hole. A small poky, musty little reception desk apparently empty. I ring the rusty hand bell presumably placed there for such an inevitability. The previously invisible figure behind the desk stands up, his little brown nose just level with the surface. Peering over and down I’m met his a wide grin. A wide toothless grin. No. Not toothless. A wide grin baring one yellowing tooth, protruding up from the bottom gum. In accented English I’m far from understanding well, he proceeds to welcome me with open arms and a strong preference for cash only payment, even though that results in a reduction of £1.50 in the room price. He beckons and I follow. Left6, right, right and left again and through a precariously small door down a precariously narrow flight of stairs. Flights of stairs. Down down down. In the dimming light I notice a dungeon key on a half-foot long wooden fob. The secret of entrance into my dungeon room. ‘Lights no work’ apparently, in this under-passage. Suddenly left alone I fumble for the lamp which, with a buzzing flicker reveals a small cot bed spread with a solitary 1930s cover. Two steps across paisley carpet the opposite wall sports two dank curtains on a rusty rail. Whisking them open with a clatter I unmask a secret window... drawn on the greying wall in a thick black pen. The plug sparks as I shove and what might just be a tv set flickers and buzzes in discordant harmony with the lamp. Fizz. Slupperr. Bizzerr. Bozz. Hotel star ratings seem to me to be fairly arbitrary...at least between 1 and 3.